Senior Research Fellow - Centre for Ecosystem Science

I am a plant ecologist and enjoy getting out in the field to study population and community dynamics. Much of my work encompasses the broad themes of seed ecology, disturbance ecology and global change biology, and particularly how changes to environmental factors can impact upon life-history traits and populations. This work is often applied to understanding related key ecological issues, including maintaining biodiversity and the impacts of climate change. I have conducted my research in several systems including fire-prone heath and forests, arid ephemeral plant communities, cloud forest on oceanic islands and, most recently, in fixed dune annual plant communities.

Latest News

May2018-PhD student Justin Collette gets his work underway in Queensland with a nice ecological burn. Link here to a story from our funders at SE Qld Fire & Biodiversity Consortium.

May2018-Mark Ooi was interviewed by the ABC for a story about post-fire recovery of Royal National Park here

April2018-Honours student Jason Chan starts his studies with a bit of publicity, as the subject of a story on ABC Open here. This is part of a collaborative project with Australian National Botanic Gardens.

March2018-A great paper published in Plant Ecologyhere, from Harrison Palmer's Honours http://www.fireandbiodiversity.org.au/news/fire-research-in-australia-s-fire-prone-heathlandswork looking at fire severity and soil seed banks

Jan2018-A nice start to the year with a paper from new collaboration with Kings Park in Perth, led by Miriam Munoz-Rojas investigating cyanobacteria and seed germination here

​Jul-Nov2017-Another bumper crop of publications from the lab including Ganesha Liyanage's Seed Science Research paper on dormancy and seed age here, seed size and dormancy thresholds in Biol J Linn Sochere. With Desiree Ramos and colleagues from UnB in Brazil, a nice paper in J Veg Sci here

June 2016- New paper investigating seed quality after pollination by introduced honeybees. Led by Amy-Marie Gilpin, and part of a collaboration with Mark Ooi and Justin Collette from the Seed Ecology Lab.

June 2016- Mark Ooi invited to talk at Talking Landcare on the subject of fire ecology. Organised by Landcare Illawarra and Conservation Volunteers Australia

May 2016- New paper led by Berin Mackenzie with Mark Ooi as co-author published in PLoS One - link to paper is here. Congratulations to Berin - the first paper from his PhD!

March 2016- Ganesha Liyanage (UOW) and Berin Mackenzie (UNSW) from the Ooi Seed Ecology Lab both win awards at the National Seed Science Forum, held at the Australian Botanic Gardens, Mt Annan NSW Australia